The present invention relates to a process and an apparatus for delivering preferably folded printing products to a further processing point.
In the case of the apparatus of this type described in CH-A-630,583 and the corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 4,320,894, in the transfer region the fed printing products are pushed by the supply conveyor directly into the passing open grippers of the removal conveyor. In order to ensure correct seizing of the printing products, in the transfer region of the printing products the conveying direction of the removal conveyor runs from bottom to top and transversely to the conveying direction of the fed printing products. Although this measure means that allowance can be made for slight irregularities in the distances between successive printing products in the imbricated stream, too great a distance between two printing products within the fed imbricated formation has the effect that certain products arrive at the transfer region too late and consequently miss the assigned gripper, which then goes on empty to the further processing point. The following gripper then takes with it not only the printing product assigned to it but also that product which could not be taken along by the preceding gripper. It is consequently obvious that such an irregular incidence of printing products can have adverse effects at the downstream further processing point.
It is further known from EP-A-0,368,009 (and the corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 5,042,792) to convey against a stop printing products which are fed in pairs lying one on top of the other in an imbricated formation in which each product pair rests on the following product pair, then seize them in the region of the leading edge by a suction member and raise them in order to bring the corresponding printing product into the effective range of circulating driver elements, which raise the leading edges of the printing products further into the conveying region of a removal conveyor, which is formed by two interacting belt conveyors. With this known apparatus, the printing products lying one on top of the other in the fed imbricated formation can be detatched from one another and arranged to form a new imbricated formation in which all the products only overlap partially and no longer cover one another completely.
Nevertheless, in the case of this apparatus as well it is important that the packs of printing products in the fed imbricated formation are essentially at the same distances from one another, in order for undisturbed separating of the completely covering printing products to be possible.
The present invention is thus based on the object of providing a process and an apparatus of the type mentioned at the beginning which allow the printing products to be fed to a further processing point in the desired sequence irrespective of the quality of the fed imbricated formation.